U.S. offers aid to hurricane-blasted Cuba

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Hurricane havoc
View images from the deadliest and costliest hurricanes to hit the United States.

Gustav's center roared close to La Palma, a banana-growing town flanked by breathtaking green, limestone mountains, leaving piles of sticks where homes once stood. The region is where Cubans plant their finest tobacco, though the crop won't be affected because Gustav hit before planting season.

Work to rebuild homes is still days off, but trucks loaded with metal sheets for roofs and other flimsy construction materials have begun arriving.

Much of the recovery will fall to the military and brigades of students and young communists forced to work hard and fast for little or no wages.

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In the one-room Batabano home that Maria Elena Araujo shares with her wheelchair-confined husband, the hole Gustav punched in the roof allows sunlight to shine at jagged angles on the bed. Araujo said officials told her it didn't require urgent attention.

"We don't have any support from anyone," the 54-year-old said. "I don't see a solution. I hope it doesn't rain."

Concerns over food
Back in La Palma, Perez and her family are living in far worse conditions. Hurricane Gustav tore off the roof and crushed the walls and floor. "It's a total loss," she said.

They sleep in a wood hut crammed with furniture salvaged from the house. There's no electricity. A truck rumbles by every day with potable water and milk for the baby. But the family has to cook on a camping stove, subsisting on rice and beans it stored up before the storm.

"The food is the hardest thing. There's not enough of it," said Perez, who said she'd like to slaughter one of the chickens her husband raises, but that a lack of refrigeration means eating all the meat in one sitting.